A new company, DDO SA, has been formed in Spain to build and operate a 36,000 square foot factory in La Coruna, to manufacture 3.5 Winchesters. It will be the first of its kind to operate on Spanish soil. DDO was formed last June by two Spanish companies Fabrica San Carlos-Eurostor SA and arms manufacturer Santa Barbara SA with 85% and 15% respectively. Santa Barbara will provide the premises and most of the 230 workers initially needed at the plant – Galicia’s regional government will meet the cost of retraining the workforce. Fabrica San Carlos-Eurostor will offer technology and technical and operational know-how. Aura Memories Inc will become a technological partner. DDO managing director Julio Sabat told Computerworld Espana that as well as a first for Spain, the initiative is also of importance to Europe, since it does not have many hard disk plants. Of the initial $22.4m investment, $5.2m will be spent on construction of the plant, $5.2m on equipment and $5.6m on technology, leaving $6.4m as working capital. DDO will make 3.5 disks with capacities of 850Mb to 4Gb, starting in the fourth quarter this year, and it aims to manufacture some 400,000 drives next year, when the workforce will rise to 300. DDO intends to serve the domestic and Europe-wide markets. This market is showing higher growth than the computing sector itself, since, besides demand for new disks, there is an increasing need for new product to replace existing disks, Sabat concluded. The company is looking for $100m turnover in the third year.
